<p>The Americans with Disabilities Act requires common carriers offering telephone services to the general public to increase the availability of interstate and intrastate telecommunication relay services to individuals with hearing and speech impairments.</p><br>

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<p>The [http://www.ada.gov/ '''Americans with Disabilities Act]''' requires common carriers offering telephone services to the general public to increase the availability of interstate and intrastate telecommunication relay services to individuals with hearing and speech impairments.</p><br>

<p>All common carriers of telephone services must offer non-voice relay services that interface with voice services.</p><br>

<p>All common carriers of telephone services must offer non-voice relay services that interface with voice services.</p><br>

Revision as of 16:41, 24 June 2010

DEAF

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires common carriers offering telephone services to the general public to increase the availability of interstate and intrastate telecommunication relay services to individuals with hearing and speech impairments.

All common carriers of telephone services must offer non-voice relay services that interface with voice services.

The letters "TDD" stand for Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf. MCM refers to any portable device that gives "soft copy".

TTY means teletypewriter. The first telecommunication devices were actually Western Union teletypewriters (TTYs) with phone couplers. Now it is a generic term used by deaf people to refer to telecommunication devices in general. As a device, the advantage of a TTY is that it offers "hard copy" and can be filed for later use (which means the person does not have to constantly watch the display as the message is typed out). The disadvantage is that TTYs are generally not portable.